RISHON LE ZION, Israel'Anguished mourners buried seven members of the Nehmad family here Sunday, including three children, as the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched retaliatory airstrikes for a string of attacks that killed 21 Israelis over the weekend.
F-16 fighter jets and helicopters carried out limited airstrikes against Palestinian targets, killing four Palestinians in attacks on police stations, a military intelligence building and a checkpoint in the West Bank. One of two police stations hit in Ramallah was several hundred yards from the headquarters of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who was not hurt. Sources in Sharon's office said the government would step up military operations but would not destroy the authority or harm Arafat.
For Israelis exhausted by more than 17 months of bloodshed, Sunday was another day of horror.
Bodies of the nine Israelis killed Saturday night in a suicide bombing in an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood had not been identified by forensic specialists before a Palestinian gunman launched another devastating attack Sunday morning.
The gunman climbed a hill above a remote Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank, then used a rifle to methodically gun down soldiers manning the roadblock, Jewish settlers waiting to pass through in their cars on their way to work and rescuers who arrived at the scene. Army investigators said he shot 30 times, killing the three soldiers at the checkpoint.
A commander who emerged from a structure at the checkpoint when the shooting started was also gunned down, as was a fourth soldier.
Before the shooting ended, seven soldiers and three Jewish settlers were either dead or mortally wounded. Six others were wounded, including the civilian chief of security for settlements in the region. The gunman escaped. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack, the third such assault on an Israeli checkpoint in recent weeks. The same militia claimed responsibility for Saturday night's suicide bombing.
Israel's invasion Thursday and Friday of two camps in the West Bank was cited as the reason for both attacks.
Israeli troops thrust into the camps, killed more than 20 before withdrawing. The army said the incursions were meant to demonstrate that Israel will not hesitate to pursue gunmen wherever they may be, even at the risk of Palestinian civilian and Israeli military casualties.
